NAN-F-17
Cooperation
Phnom Phen, Sept. 14, 2017 (Reuters/NAN) Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursday, said he was suspending cooperation with the U.S. in finding remains of Americans killed in the Vietnam War in the latest tensions between the two countries.
The war which ended in 1975 remains an emotive issue in Cambodia.
Sen has accused the U.S. of plotting treason with opposition leader Kem Sokha, an accusation rejected by the U.S. embassy.
“The search cooperation is postponed until a number of issues are resolved between Cambodia and the U.S.,” he said according to pro-government website Fresh News.
Sen said that a total of 80 American soldiers had gone missing in Cambodia during the war in neighbouring Vietnam and that half of them had been found.
He said the suspension would be lifted after Cambodia-U.S. ties were restored.
Washington had announced on Wednesday that it would stop issuing some visas after Cambodia refused to accept Cambodian citizens deported from the United States after being convicted of crimes there.
Sen said the policy of deporting them back to Cambodia “break them up as families, as parents and children, and it’s an inhumane situation in which some have committed suicide”.
Sen said that the U.S. had never apologised for its role in bombing his country to try to kill Vietnamese communist guerrillas.
Cambodia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said it would accept deportees from the U.S but the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh declined to comment on the issue. (Reuters/NAN)
OYE/DUA
Edited by Celine-Damilola Oyewole/Dada Ahmed